Buying Football Boots?

Arsenal right to sign up England’s star of the summer?

The three lions may have suffered another disappointing flop in a major tournament this summer, but that should not take away any of the credit earned by the young Arsenal right back Carl Jenkinson. The 23-year old was just about the only one of Gareth Southgate’s England under 21 squad that came away from the Euro tournament with the ability to hold his head high and according to a Daily Mail report, he is now set to sign a new Arsenal contract.

Whether this decision by Arsene Wenger was affected by Jenkinson’s England performances is unclear, but they cannot have done him any harm. Perhaps the boss had already decided to give the boyhood Gooner a new deal after he impressed in the Premier League for West Ham last season, but the paper claims that not only is he getting an extension, but a nice pay rise on his current salary of £35,000 a week as well.

However, this does not mean that Jenkinson will be playing for the Gunners this season, as he is still set to be loaned out to a Premier League club for the coming campaign. Is this really a good idea for Arsenal, seeing as we already have three more right backs on the books with Debuchy, Bellerin and Chambers?

Yep. I quite like Jenkinson. Developing into a solid right back. Doesn’t look as if he’s going to become anything really special, but a good consistent performer. Homegrown too, and most importantly – a real Arsenal fan. He doesn’t quite fit into our squad right now with the other right backs we have, but he’d be great to bring in to compete with Bellerin when Debuchy moves on. Another season on loan seems the obvious option.

I wouldn’t be opposed to keeping Jenkinson this season and loaning Bellerin out instead. Now that may seem stupid – I’m pretty sure most of us agree Bellerin is probably the better player of the two – but Bellerin also has the more room to improve, the more potential to realise if that makes sense. Plus Jenkinson is a solid backup to Debuchy so we shouldn’t struggle without him.

Bellerin is good enough to be our first choice right back in my opinion, attacking-wise he’s brilliant already, but defensively he can still improve a lot. He’d be far more challenges defensively at a lesser premier league side than here at Arsenal, where we’re rarely the team doing the defending, so that would give him a lot more experience and ability to improve. Plus he’s be able to make mistakes and learn from them without being taken out as we saw with Chambers vs Swansea, because at Arsenal, we can’t really afford mistakes. Not to mention he’d be picked pretty much every game, and theres probably be no shortage of takers if he’s made available for loan. Whereas at Arsenal, if Debuchy is fit, maybe Bellerin won’t play as much.

Now I know Bellerin is a young and exciting player and we all want to see a lot more of him in an Arsenal shirt – I do too. Don’t get me wrong, I think Bellerin is already good enough to play for us, but he’s still a young and developing player, and in the long run, I think this would help him to become an even better player.

Agree wholeheartedly.. As far as breakout seasons go he was simply fantastic. Going forward he’s a menace on the ball with speed that would surely worry anyone.
Games when we were in control and teams were sitting deep looking to counter he was brilliant. But the games where we were on the back foot and teams were actually having a real go at us I was much less convinced. You could also tell in a number of games that it was obviously our weak link as oppositions attacks often targeted his flank and their most dangerous attacks stemmed from there.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a massive fan. But it’s our defence that I truly believe will be imperative to our title challenge this coming season. We have the creativity, the quality and multiple sources capable of finding the back of the net against near on any team. I just feel the added security Debuchy brings should be a priority, especially if the weaker defensive contribution of Theo and Ox is going to the preference for us going forward.

Agreed, definitely both unusual injuries! With that said, who knows how that is going to effect this coming season, as well as what the lingering effects of those injuries will be. Diaby’s first season injured, we said that same thing, and look how that turned out.

We should sell Flamini, Campbell, Sanogo and Ospina next and two top players. Currently we have a big squad number wise but few players who are very old and cant perform at the top
level and few average players. CDM and ST please at any cost if we are to challenge for trophies otherwise it will 3rd or 4th with a Cup win.

I do like jenks, he is arsenal through and through he is a good rb with potential to be very good.
However we also have hector bellerin, who is also a good rb, but has the potential to be one of the best.
Its harsh but id get rid of debuchey, keep jenks and hector to fight it out and move chambers to the middle

It’s a conundrum – the choice between Debuchy, Bellerin and Jenkinson. But first a question: What was a 23-year-old doing in an Under21 side?? Or do I not understand the rules of engagement?

Oh, to choose between the steady experience of Debuchy, the mind-blowing pace going forward of Bellerin and the all-round potential of Jenkinson. At this stage and for the new season Debuchy MUST be the No. 1 choice, purely because he is a good and hard defender. But I would be happy either way if Wenger chose to loan out Jenkinson (again) or Bellerin and kept only 1 of the 2 as backup to Debuchy. And if both get injured, there’s still Chambers, although he seems to have faded a bit in the Wenger popularity stakes.